Rest Goes Hard on the Heart

Perfectly subjective, all that follows --

Activity circulates blood; inactivity leaves the heart to do all the work.  Sleep has become more difficult than wakefulness, but wakefulness and activity have become suddenly treacherous.

My not-so-novel response to my introduction to common Lisinopril: hyperawareness, hypervigilence, and one really good bout with panic underwritten by some kind of sensory experience.  As with automobiles these days and their computers, I suspect the body has to "reset" and "recallibrate" its autonomous alogorithms when its chemistry has been abruptly altered. 

Well, no need to feel alone in that respect:

http://www.medications.com/se/lisinopril/anxiety-attacks

Sow now I'm looking around for "cardiac rehab" guidance: how much effort should be applied to producing a training effect in the heart?  How much would be too much?

I've just learned 30 minutes out in the winter of 2009's first snowstorm, with a last uphill climb through 15 inches of powder back to my building, seems enough exercise for at least half a day. 

Booties on around here, and hot tea in the cup.

Thirty minutes out walking twice a day hasn't done me in, not even with snow up to my shins, but I do wonder if so minimal an effort has done my heart any good.

Last blood pressure reading 30 minutes after five minutes of exercise with ten-pound dumbells: 125/75 79 -- not bad, but what does it mean? 

I've complained here in 19th Century Modern about being made Borg before my time--before anyone's time.

Now I wonder to what extent that sentiment may have been subconciously driven by rising blood pressure and awareness of changes brought about through my comparatively inactive state.

Somewhere back in my history, I had three or more years of stellar cardiovascular fitness sustained by routine 45- and 90-minute jogs and runs; more recently, or since the building fire o' 2006 and the move to the low mountains, I've drifted far into the "mouse potato's" life: life online, blogging, researching, teleconversing with typing endlessly--and offline: photography, much of which today involves the same computing platform. 

Add for refreshment in recent years: a great girlfriend, now ex-girlfriend, and . . . restaurants!

More drink, more food, more rest, little physical activity . . . more death.

I have this week with a pill about the size of the head of a pin entered middle age with undeniable finality, and it seems my first job, the one without which no other is possible, is to stay in it for as long and as well as I may.

Goodbye, my old black volcanic coffee bean.

Hello, decaf.

It's not so bad.

I've just passed a week without the aforementioned morning coffee or the evening's equally medicinal bar drink. 

Of hamburgers and pizzas, much less barbecue, and other salty and sweet delectibles I have but memories.

Of late and away from office and kitchen (and theater), I've been outdoors and moving along a few times.

I've also played my guitar and sung for more than an hour at a time, a first return to practice after months if not years of low-level maintenance of the skill and talent.

So last night, fairly alcohol, caffiene, fat, and salt free, also exercised and one might even say "venillated", I poured about two ounces of wine for Kaddish and noticed I could smell the bouqet of that small amount of Girasole Vineyards' Pinot Noir from several feet away.

Odd, that.

But kind of cool.

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